


Guarding The Rear

by thankyouandyou



Category: Spartacus: Vengeance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouandyou/pseuds/thankyouandyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written after the finale of Spartacus: Vengeance.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Guarding The Rear

**Author's Note:**

> Written after the finale of Spartacus: Vengeance.

Your legs are faltering. The light, soft tread has given way to a careless stumbling pattern, you’re tripping over your feet. Your arm is pulled taught over the length of two broad shoulders, it hurts- but then again everything does.

You do not wish to be carried. You do not wish to be helped. You are clever enough to understand what you are to them now, and brave enough to know that it must stop. You twist your wrist out of the firm grip of five strong fingers, and your knees find the muddy ground below.

Agron startles, his glazed eyes widen and he reaches for you, but you push him away. The wound protests, howls, demands rest, tourniquets and balms, everything you don’t possess. You press the heel of your hand against it and it comes back wet. You smile at the dark stain. He sees you do it and makes an inarticulate sound.

"You have lived through worse than this," he growls, gripping your shoulder. "Get up."

There is the taste of blood in your mouth, red caking between your lips. You can’t tell if it’s from chewing on your lips to keep from moaning, or if it comes from somewhere deeper, from a wound much more deadly than that.

A small parade of torches passes by you, you hear your names and soft encouragements. How many of them are aware of the fresh blow over the old wound? How many of them have seen your white ribs exposed to moonlight? How many think you just a little man, unable to climb, soft and useless, needing to lie down and catch his breath?

You feel like closing your eyes, resting your head against the rock. Falling asleep and giving up.

Agron stares at the flickering light of the torches as they move away, then back to your face. He’s torn, he’s worried, he’s exhausted. His eyes, you think, will never keep much hidden. He is not blaming you, that’s also written in his gaze.

"You will leave me be," you say, and he growls a curse, dismissing you. He pulls at your arm, manages to get you half on your feet but you fight back; the wound splits open further and you gasp, wordless, at the searing pain. He pulls his arms away, you stagger backwards, and more blood rushes to your mouth. Not just your lips then. Something more important.

The trembling torches are moving further away. There is a sheen of sweat coating your skin now, the sick, cold kind. Your vision is dimming.

Agron must get moving.

You have slowed him down, you have burdened him. He won’t admit it, he might not even think it, but you can tell when you are being a liability. You know you might not even make it till dawn, and then all his efforts will have been for nothing.

"Listen to me," you hiss, and he’s cried _no_ before you’ve finished. He can read you now.

A lifetime ago, back at the villa, the dominus had ordered you to get rid of his sick, old hound. His name was Cosmus. The dominus wanted you to put him down, but you had spent one too many afternoons curled next to him on the marble steps of the villa, stroking the fur between his ears. A collar around both your necks, you felt like kin. You took him out into the fields and set him free. But Cosmus didn’t want freedom, much like you wouldn’t want it yourself, a few years later. He wouldn’t leave your side, kept running back to rub his nose against your knees no matter how many times you yelled at him to go. In the end, you had to give him a beating, kick him hard until he was curled into a pathetic ball, whimpering. He didn’t follow you after that. You walked home through the tall, green grass, your feet as heavy as lead.

Agron isn’t a sick old dog, nuzzling the cup of your hand. He is a human hound, with sharp teeth and clever eyes, but still, the same rule applies. He will only let go if you hurt him enough. The question is, how do you do that.

Your eyes find his and your hand finds the dagger at your belt. He laughs when he sees you hold it, a bitter, desperate thing that brings no light to his eyes.

"How are you going to convince me, little man?" he sighs. "What’s your plan? Threaten to kill me unless I leave you here? Overpower me with a small dagger and a wound the size of the arena?"

You almost smile at that. Naïve, simple Agron, clear as the sky on a summer day. Who knows not how to manipulate love to get what he wants. Who would carry you on his shoulders all the way to both your deaths, even if you turned your knife to him now. Insane, flawed, beloved man.

Perhaps you are smiling, because his eyes have grown soft. Hopeful, in the midst of all this chaos.

His breath abandons him when you press the dagger to your own neck, right over the spot where your irregular pulse is singing. A trickle of blood runs down your chest to join the pool of red under your ribs.

You grin at him, show him your teeth. Your eyes don’t leave his for a second. There is some sick sense of victory in this, in using his love against him to save his own life. You are ruthless and brilliant.  _Fucking Syrians,_ indeed.

He whispers your name, the name your brother gave you. You do not waver. You press on.

The moon is reflected on the silver blade. Your blood drips to the ground. "What are you doing," he asks.

You narrow your eyes.

"Would you cut my life short rather than leave me here?"

He looks so lost, suddenly, so young, for a man who feasts on blood and metal. For that small, weak moment, you love him so much, so violently, that your heart almost stops with the force of it. You press the dagger deeper into your flesh to make yourself focus.

 He looks at the blade, at your face, breathes deep, recovers. "You are not dying," he says in his most menacing voice.

You shake your head. "No. Not yet. But I am slowing you down."

"I am not leaving you here!" he shouts, hands reaching out to touch you but never making it, you have moved further away, put more distance between your bodies.

"Leave me here or watch me die," you tell him. "I’ll do it. You know I will."

He knows you will. He doesn’t understand why, perhaps he never will, but it’s enough that you do.

"Leave me behind," you order harshly, "give me a chance to survive. Or persist and kill me now."

He lets out a wounded animal cry, and you’re reminded of Crixus, screaming out his pain to the heavens. Your belly fills with something warm, something like gratitude. You are glad for this man. What an odd place for such a feeling.

Your knees are buckling. You won’t fall to the ground, not yet.

"Why?" he asks. You knew he wouldn’t understand. You want to tell him how much like Crixus he is. Blind and reckless where his heart is involved. You are his heart. You know that much. But all this is metaphorical. You are not pumping blood through his veins. He can survive without you. He _will_ survive without you, even if you have to slit your throat to make sure.

The torches are fading away. In a while, there will be nothing left of them, no guiding light for Agron to follow. There is no time for explanations, but you will spill the remaining of your blood on this path, you know it now, and you can’t leave him without some final words.

You seek his eyes. You find them angered and red. You hold his gaze defiantly.

"Remember when you met me first, remember what I said? What I told Spartacus, do you remember?"

You can’t recall if he was there when you spoke the words, when you asked Spartacus to kill you, for he had done so once already. You know he was there when Spartacus refused to do so, leaning against a table with a cocky grin, calling you a _wild little dog._

He shakes his head, rubs his sweaty hair with a hand, back and forth over his forehead, the way he does when he’s just woken up, trying to push away the nightmares.

He grimaces. "What are you asking me? Were there even words exchanged in that first meeting? I just remember you growling at us, little man."

You laugh, wishing you could touch him without risking him knocking the knife away from your hand. You want to touch him, you always want to. You force yourself to concentrate and speak again.

"I told him, that by freeing me, he had taken my life. That before, I had respect, I had position, and you had taken all that away by killing my dominus _._ That I was left with nothing."

Agron frowns at your words.

"Do you wish to blame me?" he asks roughly. "You think you can hurt me with words so I’ll abandon you?"

You shake your head and the world sways. You try to keep your thoughts in order, your tongue true and sharp. It is not easy.

"I am telling you I was wrong. The night I was freed I was given life, and now I am asking you not to tarnish the gift."

You hear his breath struggle in his lungs, his muscles tensing. You wonder, vaguely, through the haze, if he will launch himself at you. You make sure he can see your hand on the knife is steady, ready to push should he move towards you. You wait and moments trickle past slowly. You breathe in and out, try to keep yourself upright, try to ignore the pain and the vertigo, the strong urge to just give in to him and let him kill you both.

His fists unclench at last and his chest hollows. His eyes find the ground and stay there, unblinking.

"And how are you planning to honor that gift of life, Nasir?" he asks in a ruined voice, and you think, _I did that. Forgive me._

You smile at him, unguarded finally, successful, relieved. "By watching you close the distance to the rest," you say. "I will be glad the moment I can no longer hear your fucking footsteps."

He nods. You want to kiss him goodbye, share his breath one last time, but you won’t. You stand your ground, further than you’ve ever stood from him, no skin or warmth to link you.

"By the Gods," he murmurs. "I swear-"

"I will join you, you hear yourself telling him. At my own, idle pace. Let me rest a while. I will come find you."

It is a foolish lie, but you find you half believe in it yourself. You are not saying goodbye. You will not say goodbye.

Your name again, breathed out soft, like a secret, painful word.

You let your eyes fall upon him, map him out, lock him in. You want to tell him that you are both immortal now, but that’s a crazy notion, born from blood loss and exhaustion, so you don’t give it voice. You think it though. It rings in your head.  _We are immortal, now._

He takes one step backwards and your heart flutters, light as a feather, as the knife in your hand.

"Go on, gladiator," you grin. "Let the wild little dog guard the rear."

 

 


End file.
